BoomZap Entertainment Announces Legends of Fire & Steel for Tablets

Legends of Fire & Steel will challenge players to build an army and conquer the world in single-player or multiplayer games.

Rescue Quest developer, BoomZap Entertainment, has announced Legends of Fire & Steel, its upcoming world conquest game that mixes elements from board games and card games. The game was inspired by strategy games like Civilization, Crusader Kings 2 and Heroes of Might and Magic, but will focus on a shorter playtime and simple controls.

Legends of Fire & Steel is set in the land of Callasia, which is locked in a war between three major races: Human, Fae and Revenant. In each game, players will create armies led by heroes, and use them to capture territories in order to gather resources and expand those armies, with the objective being to capture all of the opponent’s castles. Each individual unit and hero has its own strengths and weaknesses, and can be upgraded to become more powerful.

On each turn, players will have a variety of action options, from hiring, upgrading and unlocking new units for their army, to organizing these troops between cities and occupied lands. Players can attempt to conquer new lands, sacrifice their current territories for an instant boost in resources, heal knocked out units or give their armies a defensive bonus for that turn.

Legends of Fire & Steel will offer both single-player and multiplayer gameplay. During multiplayer games, the traditional turn-based play is replaced by what BoomZap calls a ‘simultaneous plan and resolution cycle.’

One of the most innovative aspects of the game is the way we are handling multiplayer battles. Most strategy games force the players to play in real time—which makes the game all about who clicks faster—or in a hotseat turn-based mode, where most of your time is spent waiting for your opponents to finish their turns. Instead, we are taking a cue from the classic board game Diplomacy, and allowing players to plan their moves simultaneously, and then see them all resolved together. This not only eliminates the tedium of hotseat waiting, but also creates new gameplay possibilities, where players can make deals, form alliances, and plan moves together—but see them actually played out in real time.

BoomZap is developing Legends of Fire & Steel for mobile tablets, as well as PC and Mac, and is seeking funding from the community via Kickstarter. As of this writing, the campaign has reached over $2,600 of its $50,000 goal, with 12 days remaining. BoomZap hopes to release the game in November 2015, even if the Kickstarter campaign isn’t successful.